Chase is heading upmarket with its bank branches, sprucing up dozens of its Windy City locations to better cater to affluent customers.

One of the nation's biggest financial services firms, Chase currently has 38 Chicago-area bank branches that have carved out separate areas for clients with investable assets of $500,000 to $5 million. Those better-heeled customers receive speedier service from bankers and investment experts in the privacy and comfort of what are called Chase Private Client offices.

The number of those local branches catering to the rich will grow to more than 70 by the end of 2012, said Chase, which is undertaking the program nationally.

In downtown Chicago's Chase Tower, a northwest corner of the banking floor that once consisted of open cubicles for loan officers and personal bankers has been walled off into an area with a separate entrance and more exclusive ambience, right down to a mahogany-toned wood, the offer of a beverage and a lounge area with a TV.

The view from passers-by on Madison Street is now obscured to offer even more privacy. A couple of stand-alone conference rooms enable clients to meet with bankers and investment pros without prying eyes or ears.

It may be all the rage for Occupy Wall Street types and others to take potshots at people with a high net worth, but those hefty balances add up to bigger bucks for the financial services industry.

Historically, only half of checking accounts have been profitable for banks, according to financial services consulting firm Celent. Those most lucrative to banks have been customers who pile up fees for overdrawn accounts, as well as those who carry checking balances of more than $3,000. Ideally, banks can lend out that money and earn interest income on it.

Chase believes that its private-client business could generate as much as $1 billion in net income annually.

That's why it and other financial services firms, including Bank of America, PNC Bank and even Discover Financial Services have recently introduced or bolstered products and services for wealthier clients.

Efforts to appeal to those consumers have intensified with the recession's impact on middle- and lower-income consumers, who are typically viewed as higher credit risks by a still-cautious banking and credit-card industry. A regulatory crackdown on certain financial marketing practices and fees related to checking accounts and debit and credit cards has further intensified those efforts.

These days, "banks are struggling to grow revenue," said Terry McEvoy, a banking analyst with Oppenheimer & Co. "Selling more products to more customers is key."

The top 20 percent of U.S. households account for about half of the nation's income, according to Unity Marketing, a luxury-retail research firm.

And the wealth of high-net-worth individuals in North America in 2010 hit $11.6 trillion, up 9.1 percent, according to the 15th annual World Wealth Report, released in June by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini.

"The concept of Chase Private Client is that we have 20 million customers at Chase, and 10 percent of them are affluent," said Barry Sommers, chief executive of Chase Wealth Management. And, of those 1.8 million wealthy Chase customers, about two-thirds of them like to visit a bank branch at least once a quarter, he said.

Besides the nicer digs, Chase private client customers also get a dedicated team that includes a private banker and an investment professional, a 24/7 hotline for customer service, better rates on savings and checking accounts, and up to five waived fees at non-Chase ATMs a month.

Their perks also include free checks, overdraft transfers, stop payments and domestic wires. Finally, the Chase customers also get access to investment products and services from sister company JPMorgan, including MorganMarkets, the firm's research and online market data site.

The rollout of Chase Private Client began in 2007.

By the end of 2011, Chase Private Client plans to have a presence in more than 250 locations nationwide, with nearly 1,000 by 2013. Besides Chicago, key markets include Florida, the New York area and California.

Last month, Bank of America rolled out its Platinum Privileges rewards program to Illinois and eight other states. The program, which targets customers with investable assets of $50,000 to $250,000, had been piloted in Arizona, Georgia and Massachusetts.

The bank will introduce Platinum Privileges in remaining states throughout 2011 and 2012.